US sending 'dangerous signals' on Taiwan, China tells Blinken

NEW YORK: China has accused the United States of sending “very wrong, dangerous signals” on Taiwan after the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told his Chinese counterpart that the maintenance of peace over Taiwan was vitally important.

Taiwan was the focus of the 90-minute, “direct and honest” talks between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York, a US official told reporters.

“For our part, the secretary made crystal clear that, in accordance with our long-standing one-China policy, which again has not changed, the maintenance of peace and stability across the Strait is absolutely, vitally important,” the senior US administration official said.

China’s foreign ministry, in a statement on the meeting, said the United States was sending “very wrong, dangerous signals” on Taiwan, and the more rampant Taiwan’s independence activity, the less likely there would be a peaceful settlement.

“The Taiwan issue is an internal Chinese matter, and the United States has no right to interfere in what method will be used to resolve it,” the ministry cited Wang as saying.

Tensions over Taiwan have soared after a visit there in August by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi – which was followed by large-scale Chinese military drills – as well as a pledge by US President Joe Biden to defend the democratically governed island.

Biden’s statement was his most explicit to date about committing US troops to defend the island. It was also the latest instance of his appearing to go beyond a long-standing US policy of “strategic ambiguity,” which does not make it clear whether the United States would respond militarily to an attack on Taiwan.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry, responding to the meeting between Blinken and Wang, said China’s “recent provocative actions” had made the Taiwan Strait a focus of discussion, and China was trying to “confuse the international audience with arguments and criticisms that contradict reality.”

The State Department had said earlier that Blinken’s meeting with Wang was part of a US effort to “maintain open lines of communication and manage competition responsibly,” and the senior official said Blinken had reiterated US openness to “cooperating with China on matters of global concern.”

Blinken also “highlighted the implications” if China were to provide material support to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or engage in wholesale sanctions evasion, the official added. US officials have in the past said they had seen no evidence of China providing such support.

Blinken “underscored that the United States and China and the international community have an obligation to work to counter the effects of that invasion and also to deter Russia from taking further provocative actions,” the official said.

‘DEVASTATE OUR BILATERAL TIES’

Blinken’s meeting with Wang was preceded by one between the foreign ministers of the Quad grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States, which issued a statement, referring to the Indo-Pacific, saying that “we strongly oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo or increase tensions in the region.”

US Vice President Kamala Harris will discuss Taiwan security during bilateral meetings with the leaders of U.S. allies Japan and South Korea when she visits them next week, another U.S. official said.

In a speech to the Asia Society in New York on Thursday, Wang said the Taiwan question was growing into the biggest risk in China-US relations.

“Should it be mishandled, it is most likely to devastate our bilateral ties,” Wang said, according to a transcript from the Chinese embassy.

Likewise, the decades-old US law outlining Washington’s unofficial relations with Taiwan – which Beijing considers null – makes clear that Washington’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with China in 1979 “rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means.”